Journey into the underworld through three thousand years of visions of hell, from the ancient Near East to modern America.
From the Hebrew Bible''s shadowy realm of Sheol to Buffy''s visit to the afterlife in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The Penguin Book of Hell takes us through three thousand years of eternal damnation. Along the way, you''ll take a ferry ride with Aeneas to Hades, across the river Acheron; wander the nine circles of hell in Dante''s Inferno, in which gluttons, liars, heretics, murderers, and hypocrites are made to endure crime-appropriate torture; and witness the debates that raged in Victorian England when Darwin''s theory of evolution cast doubt on the idea of an eternal hereafter. Drawing upon religious poetry, epics, theological treatises, stories of miracles, and accounts of saints'' lives, this fascinating volume of hellscapes illuminates how hell has long haunted us, in both life and death.
